36 Chowringhee Lane

Guess it's one of my kind of movies in a changing world guess few things must evolve retaining their original likes. 39 yrs since movie award winner from a good director good cast.

After Mr & Mrs Iyer, this was my second movie by Aparna Sen. And as the other reviewer noted, I see her work as being influenced by Satyajit Ray - depth of human emotions captured by powerful camera work and extremely sensitive direction.

Film also reminded me of SWAYAM, directed by Mahesh Bhatt, acted by Waheeda Rahman. A similar old mother and deserted by her children. In the end, in both the films, the mother emerges lonely. While Swayam shows Waheeda as a more independent and powerful character, Jennifer Kendal in 36 Chowringhee Lane is portrayed as more sensitive, delicate and brimming with human emotions. Even Satyajit Ray's Aparajito emerges to be much more independent and powerful compared to Jennifer here.

All the comparisons apart, Aparna Sen gets the full marks for one of the most sensitive and sentimental films of India. Climax will make you cry for Jennifer and will remind you of your own parents.

Almost 10-15 years ago, I watched the movie first time and intermittently. I got a very disgusting feeling seeing the misuse of someone's trust. This year, I watched it second time and completely. I must say I found it hilarious seeing many scenes. First scene - I was really fearing that the youthful Indian couple might throw away the old English woman from her own house. Second scene - I felt sick seeing male character picking cat that way to get easier youthful sex. Honestly, the Indian male character of the Indian couple seemed extremely filthy to me. I liked what Miss Stoneham said in the end -- do not mock me and other lines. Loneliness of old (people) is not an issue in Indian culture due to (obviously) the great family relationships, but am grateful that Western nations did at least something to take care of the old people (even the ones that don't have families.) Obviously, unlike West, India has not seen war widows or war distraught families. That is good about India - India likes peace not war.

Remembering the old lady Violet--unforgettably characterized by Jennifer Kendal--of 36 Chowringhee Lane any serious film viewer may continue to search the gender images so carefully built up by Aparna sen along her directorial career till now. In 36 Chowringhee Lane Aparna Sen, the well-acclaimed actress successfully begins to expand her originality as an artist of film as a whole. Almost at thirty-five years of a sovereign national identity a female Indian director portrays an aged English lady teacher still living in Calcutta, which was the capital of previous British colony in India. The individual as a trace of a colonial past-- living in a particular commonly known address of a nostalgic metropolis--succeeds to send us a universal appeal of anybody in the periphery of any society.

The intensity of loneliness has been unfolded by amazingly sensitive details of the daily existence of Violet Stoneham. The composition of the frames and sequences are reminiscent of classic directors. In a few sequences the detailing drags, but it sincerely illustrates the monotony inherent in the life of the hardworking loner.

The ill, old brother and a Bengalee couple appear to be the only close human associations of Violet. Both the parties leave her life at the end of a less eventful, courageous narrative, in which all the casts make excellent justice to the characters.

In spite of the desperate effort of Violet her brother Eddie dies. On the other hand, one of the Bengalee students Nandita and her boyfriend Samaresh, coming of an affluent social background care little to utilize her affection and her crying need for human relation, even after their marriage. Touching on a sexist sub-context Aparna manages her realism to keep authentic in featuring the young vulnerable lady Nandita less deceptive and dishonest than her decisive husband Samaresh. The matching insertion of a critically projected, insensitive urban attitude towards such a motherly subject also helps the accommodation of the local Bengali context. Debate might arise about the purpose of representing the only insensitive, self-centered Bengalees.

The surrealist treatment of past and unconscious in representations of dream, love, pain and fear of death of lonely English individual introduces the Indian spectators to a different film language. It helps them visualizing an exotic theme growing out of their own cultural space. All the unfamiliar aspects of the film do not suppose to isolate the Indian viewers from the characters, because the passion of the narrative from the very beginning may engage any spectator effectively in feeling and identifying a sphere of isolation of an"other" lady. The uses of sequences of silence, soundless presence of animals and insects, emptiness in space, elements in the individual sets, the lights and the always-sensitive camera positions voice in unison a deep care for a quietly vanishing human entity. The last and the loneliest sequence which seems to be the fare-well to all the human attachments of Violet takes a poetic gesture towards the whole horizon of helpless humanity.

One might perceive the presence of Satyajit Ray behind many areas of the making of the film, apart from his assigned assistance. If there was anything questionable in the possible inspiration, the outstanding journey of Aparna Sen from 36 Chowringhee Lane onwards pays her own genuine tribute to all her great inspirations.

36 Chowringhee Lane is a very sensitive account of a lonely old Anglo Indian lady (Violet) living in Calcutta. In the time of this film, India has been independent from the British Raj for about 30 years. A new Indian identity is emerging. Calcutta has a cosmopolitan young culture, well versed with the west. However, in this culture Violet has no place, she is an outsider.

We need to look at the 'Anglo Indian' class before we can completely understand the tenderness of this film. 'Anglo Indian' was a class created by the ruling British. They were Christian and well educated. The colonial masters needed this class as much as the Anglo Indian class needed them. They were given jobs in the Civil Service, Army, Customs, Railway (as in the case of Violet's father), and other plum government jobs.

When India became independent, this privilege was withdrawn. These jobs were thrown open to the wider populace ( as one character moans -'even the natives are getting educated now').

Most of the Anglo Indians left India and settled in USA, UK and Australia.

Violet lived in these changing times. Her family are dead, and she tends to their graves with care. Her only surviving relative is an infirm brother....and she had lost her betrothed to the War.

Yet she struggles on in life with fortitude, and without bitterness. She loves the country she was born in and treats everyone with kindness.

As her age creeps up on her, she realises that the new times have no place for her. Her naivety and her emotional weakness is exposed, and she is left pondering her future in a large and a ruthless city.

This film serves as an excellent epilogue to the end of the Empire in India.It shows the individual suffering that the ordinary people went through.

Especially the Anglo Indians, after their privileged status was withdrawn by history and some were left to fend for themselves.